Last month I traveled across the Pacific with my family and four suitcases packed with clothes we never wore.

suitcases

My family grumbled when I took my camera out before we even made it to the airport.  I pointed out that this was mom’s vacation too and all I really wanted to do for the next ten days was to shoot for fun.  No deadlines, no shoot list, just wandering around an island with my camera bag and no itinerary. My bliss.

As the self appointed documentarian of the family I feel compelled to tell stories. Taking photos that convey that is truly all that matters to me anymore. I want my kids to have these photos as a reminder as they grow older. I know one day they will begin the search for who they are and when they look back at all the photos I took, I hope they will remember how much they were loved.


Hopefully they will forget the part about the bumpy landing and disposable white paper bags though.

camera beach bag

I hauled these bags all over the place, never in short supply of snacks, coloring books or Polaroid film. That orange thingy is my camera ‘escape pod.’ It worked well keeping sand out of places it doesn’t belong. Cameras this trip included:

Canon 5D (24-105 lens the entire week)

Fuji Instax 210

instax-photos-vacation

  Polaroid Mio

SX70 Sonar, SX-7- Model 1 and the 600 One … whew!

sx-70 sonar camera and photos

That’s a lot of cameras and not to mention a lot of $$$ film, I think that deserves a medal for carrying around 6 cameras or at least a tray of  Mai Tais.

Mai Tais

We did a lot of rainbow chasing. We finally figured out after the third day that the rainbows pretty much show up like clock work every day. You don’t really have to go very far to find a rainbow and guess what — there are usually two! 

Rainbows are pretty much everywhere on Maui.

We lounged often.

We saw turtles the size of coffee tables.

green sea turtle

And we took a road trip to the other side of the island.

And then we hired a photographer.

Vacation this year was about just being together with no agenda. Really we only planned one thing and that was to have our photos taken while we were there and we did. We have never had our family portrait taken so when I found out we were going to Maui I instantly knew who to call first, Kellie Hatcher. Next time you see me musing around these parts I might just ask Kellie to join me for a conversation here on the blog. I know you will enjoy her work — click here to see our session.

Wish you were here! 

Lindsey, aka modchik